Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Never Say Never As a Writer

I've let this blog slide for several years, and it's time to revive it. I have one new story out, and another on the way. That will give me four fiction works in electrons, and it makes sense to me to step up my marketing a bit.

The latest story is a romantic short published by Intrigue Publishing, and there's an interesting story behind it.

When I started writing fiction for publication several years ago, I had no intention to write romance, especially not erotic romance. Not that I had never written it. I have a lengthy body of fanfiction, including both male/male and male/female romance and erotica. I just never envisioned myself writing them commercially.

However, I met the people at Intrigue and worked with them on the Board of the Creatures, Crime and Creativity Conference, and they were accepting submissions for an anthology of "first times."

About that time, I was reading and writing in the BBC Sherlock fandom, and I was intrigued with many fan authors who worked with the interpretation that Sherlock is not a sexual being and falls somewhere on the Aspberger/autism spectrum. I was planning to write a Sherlock story exploring those ideas when I saw the Intrigue call for submissions. It was easy enough to change my idea to work with original characters. (And no, the characters in my story have no similarities with Sherlock or John Watson.)

So I wrote and submitted Chocolate, Cheese and Choices. They liked the story, but there were no other submissions for the anthology, so they asked if I would let them have it as a Kindle single. I was amenable, and earlier this month, the story was published. Check it out and let me know if you like it.

The lesson I learned here is to never lock into a particular genre. Staying open to possibilities is the way to go.